At 08:04 PM -0800 11/11/00, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > Is it a full time job or can someone reasonably spend a couple of
> > evenings a week doing it?
>
>A couple of evenings a week is plenty of time for most moderated
>groups; [...]
>
> > Does it have to be done sitting at MIT (or where-ever) or could it
>be
> > done from a lap-top on the top of Ben Nevis?
>
>You can do it from wherever, although it's generally easier to moderate
>from a Unix box because the tools are better.
Um, moderating *.answers has absolutely NO resemblance to moderating
other groups. The tools are completely unique to *.answers.
*.answers moderators don't approve individual posts. They approve
posters and posting formats. In fact, if you post to *.answers without
including an Approved line, you may get a response from the moderators,
but it will explicitly say that your post has *not* been passed on the
the newsgroup and that you need to repost after approval.
The indication I've seen from past moderators is that you can do it
from anywhere as long as you get a low response time from rtfm.mit.edu.
Once someone gave a recommended figure (now I'm fuzzy on whether the
recommended ping time was <100ms or <200ms), but more recently others
have said that's too stringent. As I understand it, you should be able
to do it anywhere you can telnet from.
At 09:07 AM +0000 11/11/00, Matthew Hambley wrote:
>Given all this discussion concerning the lack of moderators I, for one,
>would be interested to find out what is involved in being a moderator.
>
>What is it these people do exactly?
Basically, as noted above, they approve posters and the format of
postings, and give approved posters the magic decoder ring for posting
directly to moderated newsgroups (I suppose a lot of new FAQ authors
even today don't already have the MDR). They maintain the lists, which
include the LoPIP and the lists which drive the newsgroup monitoring.
(If you deviate too far from the approved format, you'll get email as a
result of this monitoring.) They handle email: discard spam, answer
questions, make requested changes to records for approved postings,
help people who have trouble setting up FAQs.
Note that this is the view from the outside; I've not been inside.
>Is it a full time job or can someone reasonably spend a couple of
>evenings
>a week doing it?
A couple of evenings a week should be enough to help a lot, as long as
you can commit to doing it for a long time. As David Alex Lamb
mentioned, he is likely to have to spend something like 20 hours
helping you learn the tasks. If you take that time and then can't
handle it after a couple of months, it will be a net loss. But if you
can do it for a couple of years, a couple of evenings a week, you'll be
welcomed.
David also mentioned that he's trying to get several people up to
speed, so the queue of volunteers combined with his disability means
problems getting started.
>Does it have to be done sitting at MIT (or where-ever) or could it be
>done
>from a lap-top on the top of Ben Nevis?
See above.
Edward Reid
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